Claims, counterclaims fly over Rafale jets deal

VERBAL DUEL Rahul calls for JPC; playing into enemy hands, says Prasad

NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday to clear the air over India’s purchase of 36 Rafale jets from France and demanded a joint parliamentary committee probe into the deal a day after former French president Francois Hollande fuelled controversy by saying Reliance Defence’s choice as an offset partner of Dassault Aviation, (which makes the aircraft) was India’s.

The principal Opposition party has alleged that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government chose Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group over state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for an offset deal in the $8.7-billion purchase initiated in 2016.

The ministry of defence said on Saturday that “unnecessary controversy” was being created by the opposition parties.

“The government has stated earlier and again reiterates that it had no role in the selection of Reliance Defence as the Offset partner,” it said, explaining that offset partners are chosen by the supplier and that neither France nor India, in this case, had a role to play. “As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner,” the ministry said.

A report in a French investigative website on Friday quoted the former French president as saying that the Indian government proposed the name of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group as Dassault Aviation’s offset partner.

“We had no say in this regard. The Indian government proposed this service group (Reliance Defence), and Dassault Aviation negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We did not have a choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us,” the web- site Mediapart quoted Hollande as saying.

On Saturday morning, when news agency AFP asked Hollande whether India had put pressure on Dassault to pick Reliance, the former French President , who was in Canada at the time, said he was unaware of this, and that “only Dassault can comment on this”.

Hours after Hollande’s remarks on Friday, French aerospace major Dassault said it had made the decision to partner with Reliance Defence Ltd for the deal. The French government also released a statement, saying it was not involved in the choice of the Indian partner and that French companies had complete freedom to select Indian firms for the offset part of the deal.

The Congress’s attacks on the government began within hours of the Mediapart story being published, with Gandhi tweeting on Friday that Modi had “personally negotiated & changed the #Rafale deal behind closed doors”.

He renewed his attack on Saturday morning, saying Modi and Anil Ambani had carried out a “a One Hundred & Thirty Thousand Crore, SURGICAL STRIKE on the Indian Defence forces”.